In modern bakery operations, conveyorized ovens are utilized for baking bread and other dough products in order to transport the bakery products through the oven, and other components of the bakery, on a continuous basis to produce the bakery product. The conveyor may be one single continuous conveyor extending through all of the bakery operations, or it can be a series of conveyors within each separate operation, with an intermediate conveyor for transferring pans from one operation to another. For example, there may be a single continuous conveyor for the oven and another single separate conveyor for the proofer.
In previously proposed bakery operations the conveyors, particularly in an oven, have taken a variety of forms. For example, it has previously been proposed to provide circular conveyors, as well as spiral conveyors. Typically, these conveyors extend along the periphery of the interior oven space through several flights in a circular or generally rectangular path of travel. Such conveyors are disclosed, for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,680,493; 4,726,766; and 4,514,167. As seen in these patents, such ovens require a substantial amount of space with a substantial portion of the interior of the oven vacant, since the conveyor primarily resides along the periphery of the oven.
ln U.S. Pat. No. 4,726,766, the conveyor follows an interior and exterior spiral path, which utilizes the interior space of the oven more completely, but which is complex to construct.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved conveyor system for food processing.
In particular, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved conveyor for a bakery oven, although the conveyor system is adaptable to other food processing operations, including, for example, a bakery proofer.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an improved conveyor and conveyor system.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a conveyor system of the type described herein which is efficient and dependable in operation.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an improved conveyor system for bakery products which avoids the drawbacks of the prior art.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a bakery oven construction in which the bakery products are subjected to substantially uniform baking conditions in the course of their journey through the oven.